On a side note (little pun there), I've found a good method to improve the rudder handle movement (side-to-side rotation). I use a little Toyota Body Grease M between the spring and the underside of the hull skin (where the shaft pivots). This stuff was developed to lubricate plastic-to-metal components such as sunroof slides in metal tracks (exposed to rain and dirt). It won't soften any plastics I've ever tried it on.

As I've mentioned....be VERY careful with some of the spray lubes (especially silicone) as I've broken plastic parts on my sailboards due to the carrier solvents causing de-plasticizing and shrinkage. Also....NEVER try cleaning up any of your metal with something like Naval Jelly or MagWheel cleaner or CLR. The acids are death on the harder plastics.

Thanks for all the good lube info....using WD40 with good luck (in clean water and not beaching the boats).

Even though I just bought my first Mirage Drive yesterday after reading through this post I think I'll try the lube I've using on my bicycles for awhile now and that's White Lightning EPIC All-Conditions lubricant.

Thanks for the tip about silicone's carrier solvents causing damage.I've taken to spraying the silicone into a small bottle, leaving it uncapped for a day or two, and THEN using it, but I'm not sure that this method removes the carrier solvents, really.

Hobie sells a (McNett) silicone spray in a pump container (not aerosol):(McNett) Dry silicone spray for sail luffs, cleats and bearings5106 Silicone 8ozPerhaps the pump does not contain the damaging carrier solvents...not sure...I just sent an email to McNett to ask them about this. I'll post the answer here.

Here is McNett's answer:

"...Our pump silicone contains no propellants or solvents. Additionally, the spray silicone product we make is specifically formulated so as not to harm plastics and both the propellant and the solvent used in the formulation are safe on plastics. There are other general purpose aerosol silicone products on the market that use different solvents that are harmful to plastics, and that may unfortunately be what the other gentleman is referring to, but our products are entirely safe in that regard."

We hope this helps in regards to the forum questions. If there is any additional information we can provide, please don’t hesitate to ask.

JimL wrote:As I've mentioned....be VERY careful with some of the spray lubes (especially silicone) as I've broken plastic parts on my sailboards due to the carrier solvents causing de-plasticizing and shrinkage. Also....NEVER try cleaning up any of your metal with something like Naval Jelly or MagWheel cleaner or CLR. The acids are death on the harder plastics.

Thanks for all the good lube info....using WD40 with good luck (in clean water and not beaching the boats).

old topic here that i ran across, but wanted to throw in my two cents worth for future searches and crawls ...

when i was in college we did a lot of freestyle frisbee -- using nail delays (spinning the frisbee on the end of your finger) to do all the tricks. you wanted to throw with absolutely as much spin as possible while keeping surface friction to a minimum to get maximum trick time ... we experimented with over a dozen different lubricants (including WD 40) and finally settled with silicone spray.

for what we were doing, it far and away the best .... didn't pick up dirt and gave all the disc surfaces a nice, glassy finish ... only had to be re-applied every ten throws or so.

now here's what's interesting ...

after we all graduated and became "responsible" adults, we quit playing and all of our discs sat idly bagged in a closet ... a couple years later we got together and, incredibly, every disc we'd put silicone on became brittle. in all cases, if you'd brush it or toe tap it, it would shatter like a thin fine china plate. we'd never lost a disc in over four years of practice ... but after three in a closet, they all had become obsolete.

this was only true of the discs we had treated years before ... and it didn't matter which silicone spray we'd used (there were three different ones we'd mess around with), nor which brand or sub-class of disc we used (3 different brands with at least 4 different types of plastic).

to a disc, when we went out that day, we broke every frisbee we'd treated and none of the ones we hadn't. we turned more than $1000 worth of frisbees into confetti in a single afternoon.

solely because of this, i would never, ever, put silicone on any type of plastic that i wanted to last. i have no idea if the result would be the same if we'd used the frisbees instead of letting them sit, or if the plastics of those days were radically different from the kayaks of today. but i do know, for sure, that i'd never experiment on a boat, or any other object that could potentially put my life on the line.

{great original write-up here, btw, roadrunner. hobie should give you full benefits ... god knows you've probably sold as many kayaks, and provided at least as much support, as an extremely impassioned dealer.}

I totally agree about silicone AEROSOL SPRAY...but my reasoning was because silicone AEROSOL SPRAY is totally unsuitable for underwater use, because it very quickly just washes out. Could it be that what damaged your frisbees was not the silicone ingredient, but the likely petroleum-based carrier dilutant required in an aerosol to produce the fine spray? Hobie recommends WD-40 for drive chains, but the petroleum-based carrier dilutant in the aerosol version of WD-40 worries me (possible plastic damage?), so I use non-aerosol WD-40. Yes, WD-40 itself is a petroleum product, but I trust it more than I trust the petroleum-based carrier dilutant that is added to it in the aerosol version.

The Silicone Dielectric Grease that I was recommending for drum greasing contains no additives, and is inert enough that it is used on food machinery, and so should be at least as safe on plastics as the Hobie-recommended Marine Grease. And I like it because it is cleaner to work with than marine grease, and seems to last underwater just as long as marine grease.

But, then again, Hobie has been using and recommending WD-40 and Marine Grease for many years now, and if they were damaging plastic then we would probably know by now, so likely just using WD-40 and Marine Grease is fine.

Supprised no one has mentioned T-9 Boeshield. It is waterproof, provides rust, corrosion protection from saltwater and will not harm rubber or plastics. You can find it online from industrial supply houses like McMaster Carr or bicycle shops. Far superior to WD-40 or silicones.